Ben Compton asked:
>How can an organization develop a survival instinct the same as a
>human being?
There is an old (late 70's or early 80's?), but commonly reffered
HBR-article, dealing with this issue, but I cant find the referance. It's
about a steel mill in Canada, that is close to being forced out of
busines. I'll skip the details, but the key content is something like
this:
"We were in big trouble. We needed a shared understanding of what kind of
crisis we where in, and managed to build one". Using an eksternal threat
is the oldest method of gathering a people (or, in this case, an
organization) This is when it gets interesting: "In order to respond to
the situation, whe found that we had to STOP THINKING IN SQARES AND START
THINKING IN BUBBELS INSTEAD" (or was it circels? - whatever.)
The sqare/bubble metaphore is then used to move the organization from its
old, "Taylorist" working mode, and over in a more flexible, less
controling mode. I view this as an early example of a learning
organization comming to life without "management mumbo-jumbo" telling them
why and how. And it's pure survival!
I'm sure someone knows this article, or I'll dig it up on request.
Have to go; see y'all.
Ragnar Johansen
<ragnar-s.johansen@orklafoods.telemax.no>
--"Ragnar S. Johansen" <ragnar-s.johansen@orklafoods.telemax.no>
Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>